Charities have attacked EU plans to make mobile payments more secure, claiming it would make supporters much less likely to make donations to good causes via SMS.
The Institute of Fundraising has reacted angrily to a European Central Bank consultation, which, if accepted, would be incorporated into a revised EU payment services directive.
The proposal would mean that, once a mobile payment was made, the identity of the mobile user would need to be verified by either a pin number or even an electronic fingerprint.
The Institute said charitable donations made through mobiles would come under these proposals. Every time someone wanted to make a donation they would have to go through a customer authentication process, the IoF believes.
More and more charities are using the SMS donation platform, including links on marketing and advertising campaigns. Last year, it is estimated that Comic Relief made more than £10m from text message donations alone.
IoF policy officer Caroline Drummond said: “Text donations have become an increasingly popular method of fundraising, largely due to the ease of the process and the speed with which donations are made.
“If the recommendations were implemented, this would most likely lead to fewer donations by SMS being made. We know that the more steps the donor has to go through, the less likely it is that they will complete the donation.
“The amounts that are given per transaction for SMS donations are relatively small, normally £5 or less, so we believe they should be classed as a ‘low-risk transaction’ and exempt from the customer authentication processes as proposed.”